Included with my Smart Tag toll statement is a pamphlet that reads (only in Washington): Dulles Toll Road Toll Increase: Change For The Better. The pamphlet goes on to announce that the DC Metrorail is being built from West Falls Church to Tysons Corner, Dulles Airport and beyond (to Route 772, two stops past IAD). Service to IAD (if it really goes anywhere near the airport) is said to begin in 2015. The toll hike on autos (those who drive to points short of IAD) goes into effect May 22.

Uh-huh. Question is in the current environment of budget cuts and Metro belt-tightening, will it actually get past Reston (or even past Tysons...).

http://www.dullestransit.com/

Actually, here's a better link for the specific issue address (redirects):

http://www.dullesmetro.com/

An even bigger question is how Metro will deal with overcrowding. From what I've heard, the trains on the Dulles line will have to alternate with trains on the Orange Line between DC and West Falls Church, cutting Orange Line service in half west of West Falls Church.

If you've ever taken the Orange Line to or from Vienna at rush hour, you'll know that the trains (and the parking garages) are already at capacity.

Maybe they'll have a train going back and forth between WFC and Vienna that coordinates with the Dulles trains...

Overcrowding on the Orange Line seems to be the minor issue compared with the choke point between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom. There is only one tunnel under the Potomac and there are only so many trains you can fit through that tunnel at any given time. Conservative estimates anticipate that tunnel to saturate in 15 years' time (assuming blue line trains divert to the yellow line and orange line trains go all-8-cars), and much sooner if the Dulles extension brings with it another crush of commuters. Unless the economy tanks, of course

In the meantime, if they reduce enough blue line trains through Rosslyn and make it up with orange line trains, they can send more trains out from Vienna and Tysons (when completed) without impacting the current orange line schedule through the tunnel (which still leads to overcrowded trains as it is). Eight car trains will provide another duct tape's worth of relief. Sooner or later, another underwater tunnel will be needed. Likely under Georgetown?

If I remember correctly, the present tunnel under the Potomac is only one track and that's already a choke point with all the Orange and Blue trains during rush hour. What I read wasn't clear about how Metrorail might re-route Blue trains to the Yellow Line bridge across the Potomac. A majority of Virginian commuters who currently board the Blue Line in the mornings work in Northwest DC so they'd need to transfer at L'Enfant if their Blue trains take the Yellow Line bridge. Also, there'd need to be maintained a reasonable level of service to Arlington Cemetery.

My guess is also that any new tunnel would be at Georgetown. DC's a different city now and Georgetowners are really pining for a Metro station to the point that many of the merchants said they'd help pay for it, according to the Post a while back.

I'm pretty sure the Potomac tunnel is two-track wide (one in each direction - perhaps that's what you meant?). Because the line is overcrowded, Metro is sending more and more trains at shorter intervals through the tunnel which results in trains backing up under the Potomac between Rosslyn and Foggy Bottom. The "inching" through the tunnel happens almost everyday and it almost never happens on the other lines.

If they send the Blue Line up the Yellow Line bridge, Blue Line VA commuters will just adapt to the regular Yellow Line VA commuters that transfer at L'Enfant for Orange/Blue and Chinatown for Red. Perhaps one out of every 3-5 trains during rush hour will continue to use the regular Blue Line route, thereby significantly enhancing Orange Line capacity through the Potomac tunnel. The only drawback is a confusing Metro map (but other cities - like London - already deploy the "this train goes this way during rush hour but this other way during all other times" method).


The $12bn plan was to push a tunnel from Rosslyn to Georgetown and all the way down L or M St to Union Station via the Convention Center. That would make sense since there is no truly cross-town line at the moment. And judging by the crowds that get off at Dupont/Farragut every morning, an L/M St line would be heavily used.

Don't forget all the commuters who work in Rosslyn, too... the blue line diversions will be quite a bother for them; I know a fair number of people just in my offices who take blue up from Alexandria who'd be pretty annoyed at having to go into DC and switch trains just to get to Rosslyn. A bunch more will start driving in to work, that's for sure. Didn't the planning folks decide about 5-7 years ago that they really needed to build another tunnel or bridge, but then some revised study claimed it wouldn't be needed for 20 years? Hindsight is always 20-20

Georgetown sure had better wake up and want Metro stop(s) soon... as it is, the traffic there is a nightmare, there's no parking, and that's outside of the busiest hours.

Price Soars for Extension of Metrorail

[T]he project as envisioned will probably cost $2.4 billion, a 60 percent increase over the previous estimate and a price that far outstrips the carefully negotiated financing agreement.

Project leaders said they would immediately start work on revising the scope of the construction to reduce that figure, but it was not immediately clear how much cost-cutting would be feasible.

I'm sure they're kicking themselves for keeping Metro out in the first place.

That decision was made when Marion Berry was Mayor, and DC was a very different city than it is now.

Very few forsaw Anthony Williams and the changes. If they did, they sure were stupid not to buy as much property in dc as they could.

I don't see how Marion Barry had anything to do with Georgetown not having a Metro stop. Construction began on the Metrorail system in 1969 which precedes Marion Barry's first term as mayor of DC by almost a decade.

IIRC, community opposition - due to the mistaken belief that Metro would bring crime, and unwanted noise/congestion from tourists - in the 60s was what prevented Metro from going to Georgetown, and Metro at that time would only plan stops in areas where there was support.

Unless the Federal Gov't showers WMATA with oodles/billions of cash, I don't see Georgetown getting a new Metro stop (and DC getting a cross-town line) anytime soon, no matter how much the residents want it now. One would argue that Georgetown has not suffered as witnessed by the immense concentration of high-end retail and million-dollar homes in that area. Compared to downtown - or even Dupont - where Metro stops are clustered, Georgetown is thriving sans Metro.

Thanks for correcting one mistake (Barry had nothing to do with it), but it introduces another. While there may well have been some NIMBY opposition to Metro in G'town, that wasn't what kept it out - it was the far far greater expense of the much deeper tunnel cut that would have been required at a Georgetown Potomac crossing than from Foggy Bottom.